


Amnesia:  A Quick Breakdown

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Amnesia, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:04:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1371571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rodney has amnesia and makes many lists</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amnesia:  A Quick Breakdown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cathexys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathexys/gifts).



Rodney knows these things about himself:

1\. His name. The tags around his neck read _Meredith Rodney McKay, Atlantis expedition_. Rodney sincerely hopes he goes by his second name; if not, there’s no time like the present for starting over.

2\. His relative age. He’s a little thick around the middle and his knees ache when he hunkers down for too long. His hair is thinning on the top and what little he has on his chest is approximately 8 percent grey.

3\. Rodney’s nails are short, cut down almost to the quick, and his palms are soft and without calluses.

4\. He has a star-shaped scar on his abdomen, a white pucker of raised flesh that sits just below the waistband of his pants. Rodney supposes it could be an appendectomy scar or the evidence of some other past surgery, but somehow he doesn’t think so. The scar is too irregular and ugly for that. 

5\. Rodney finds another scar on his forearm. This one is older than the one on his stomach. It’s long and straight and just barely visible in what little light his flashlight affords.

6\. He’s some kind of mechanic. Rodney woke with a wrench in his hand and a box of tools, some of which he doesn’t recognize, at his feet. The wall in front of him had been opened at a seam to spill its guts of wires onto the floor. Rodney assumes he had been trying to repair something when It happened, but he can’t say for certain. He also knows his lack of calluses belies employment as a mechanic, so he guesses that at this point in his career he mostly supervises.

 

Rodney cannot remember the following things:

1\. Where he is. His tags say _Atlantis_ , but Rodney doesn’t know what that means. Atlantis is a fairytale, not an actual place, so either Atlantis is a codeword or the name of the corporation or firm where he works. His surroundings tell him nothing. He appears to be locked inside some sort of small room with no discernible door or source of illumination. He dreads the moment when the batteries in his flashlight finally fail.

2\. What kind of car he drives.

3\. What his favorite foods are.

4\. Whether he’s married or a father.

5\. Where he went to college. If he went to college.

6\. Why his head hurts so terribly.

 

Rodney doesn’t mean to fall asleep; he closes his eyes for just one moment, just until the dizziness passes, and then can’t find the strength to open them again. When he wakes, the following events happen in quick succession:

1\. A door opens at his feet.

2\. A man with a foreign accent and smudged glasses leans over him and says, “What has happened, Rodney? Why do you not answer your radio?”

3\. “Yeah, McKay,” says another man. “We’ve got all the Marines out looking for you.” This man slouches against the doorway, some kind of enormous machine gun strapped across his chest, and a look on his face that Rodney can’t decipher. Three other soldiers are fanned out behind him and Rodney wonders how many more wait around the corner where he can’t see.

4\. Rodney scrabbles backwards until he’s got nowhere else to go, until the exposed wiring of the wall is hot against the nape of his neck and his elbows. “Please don’t hurt me,” he says. “Whatever I did, I didn’t mean to. I know I didn’t.”

5\. The man with the gun frowns. “McKay?” he says. “Rodney?” He steps into the room and Rodney flinches and draws his legs up more tightly. “Okay, buddy,” the man says as he unstraps his gun and hands it off behind him. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you. I promise. Let’s get you to the infirmary and we’ll figure it out.”

6\. “Do I have a choice?” Rodney says.

7\. The man rolls his eyes and holds out his hand. Rodney takes it.

 

In the infirmary, a doctor who could easily pass for nineteen hooks Rodney up to complicated machines and pricks him with needles and delivers a diagnosis that makes less sense to Rodney than anything else that’s happened to him since he woke up in the dark. “I think he’s suffering from amnesia as a result of exposure to Ancient technology,” she says. “The neurons that control those gene receptors are still firing even though he’s not in contact with any device that requires the ATA gene. That’s still just a guess but it’s the best I’ve got.” 

Rodney doesn’t ask questions. Nothing these people say means anything to him and for all he knows they’re lying to him anyway. He sits quietly on the bed while they talk about him—the young doctor, a blonde woman who’s apparently in charge, the foreign man, and the soldier. The soldier doesn’t say much but Rodney can tell he’s angry and impatient by the tone of his voice and the restless way he shifts his weight from his right foot to his left. Every time Rodney looks up from his clasped hands, the soldier is staring at him; this unnerves Rodney.

After what seems an interminable amount of time, the soldier escorts Rodney to his quarters, whereupon Rodney acquires the following information:

1\. The soldier’s name is John Sheppard. He’s the military commander of the Atlantis base and the leader of Rodney’s team, whatever that means. Sheppard doesn’t offer to explain.

2\. Whoever Rodney is, he’s important in some way or maybe even dangerous. Sheppard lingers in the doorway like he wants to say something, even takes a few deep breaths and opens and closes his mouth before he shoves his hands in his pockets down past the wrists. He’s looking at the floor when he says, “If you need anything, Major Lorne and Sergeant Taylor will be right outside.” Rodney waits a ten count after the door closes behind Sheppard and then pokes his head out. Sure enough, two armed soldiers flank his door; he’s apparently valuable enough that Sheppard won’t leave him unguarded.

3\. Rodney is a poor eater. His desk drawers are stuffed with bags of instant coffee, some kind of high calorie energy bars and the beef jerky strips from MREs.

4\. He’s neither a mechanic nor a modest man. Apparently Meredith Rodney McKay is a Ph.D. three times over who felt the need to frame his degrees and hang them over his bed. _Sheesh_ , Rodney thinks. _I bet I never get laid_. Except . . .

5\. Rodney is having regular and clandestine sex with another man. He finds a bottle of Astroglide and a handful of condoms in the bedside drawer. Mixed in with his dirty laundry are two pairs of boxers that Rodney thinks he might have been able to squeeze into ten years ago and a man’s black T-shirt one size too small. He’s got two razors in his shower and two toothbrushes in a plastic cup on a shelf and two sticks of Right Guard perched on the lip of the sink. Rodney figures whoever he’s sleeping with must be keeping their relationship a secret or else someone would have mentioned it back in the infirmary.

 

A few days pass and Rodney pieces together his life, at least the version of his life these people want him to believe. Colonel Carter gives him access to his personnel file and his mission reports and Rodney reads them under the covers with a chocolate chip energy bar. He’s visited by the remainder of his team, Ronon and Teyla, and Dr. Keller drags him down to the infirmary at intervals for poking and prodding. The little foreign man, Dr. Zelenka, is apparently in charge of the investigation into Rodney’s amnesia and he reports his progress to Rodney each evening. Rodney smiles and nods and thanks the scientist for his dedication. When he does this, Dr. Zelenka’s eyes cloud over and he looks pained. 

Sheppard he doesn’t see at all.

After breakfast on the fourth day, Dr. Keller tells him she’s devised a treatment for his amnesia and then Rodney has a decision to make.

Pros  
1\. Getting his memory back.

Cons  
1\. His brain boiling in his skull and leaking from his ears.

While Rodney’s thinking, the door to his quarters chimes and Sheppard walks through. “Yes?” Rodney says. “Is there something I can do for you, Colonel?”

Sheppard grimaces. “You haven’t called me that in private in a long time, Rodney.” He leans back against the wall and looks so defeated, so inexplicably afraid, that suddenly Rodney understands.

“It’s you!” he says, snapping his fingers. “You’re the guy I’m sleeping with.”

Sheppard smiles a very tired smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you say something before? No, wait. Don’t answer that. I can understand why you’d want to maintain discretion. The more important question is why are you saying something now?” Rodney sucks in a noisy breath. “Oh my god. You think I’m going to die and you’ve come to say goodbye.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Rodney. You’re not going to die.” Sheppard takes two steps forward and fists his hands in Rodney’s shirt. When he speaks again, his voice is low and fierce. “You’re not going to die.” Then they’re kissing, Sheppard licking into Rodney’s mouth and running his hands down Rodney’s sides and over his chest. Sheppard makes these tiny little noises in the back of his throat, needy noises, and when they pull apart, he rests his forehead on Rodney’s shoulder until he stops trembling. “You’re not going to die,” he whispers.

The morning after the procedure, when Rodney wakes up curled around John’s back, he performs the following sexual acts:

1\. Buries his nose in the silky hair at the nape of John’s neck and just breathes.

2\. Licks his way down the knobs of John’s spine and back up again before biting him sharply on the shoulder where his uniform will cover the mark. John arches up underneath him, sleepy and warm, and Rodney does it again.

3\. Holds John down by his hips and fits his lips over John’s cock, feeling it grow in the moist heat of his mouth. Rodney sucks him slowly like they’ve got all the time in the world and not a staff meeting to attend in forty eight minutes—gentle suction with long strokes of his tongue along the shaft. 

4\. Spreads his own ass cheeks and pushes a slick finger inside. He fucks himself that way for a long time, John’s eyes dark and intense as he watches, and before Rodney can come, John yanks Rodney’s hand out of the way and shoves his cock inside. Neither of them lasts long enough to find a steady rhythm, just three quick snaps of John’s hips before they’re coming and panting each other’s names into sweat slippery skin.

After, Rodney lazes on his back for some time, John a welcome weight on his chest, and then he says, “We should do that again. Just in case I forget.”


End file.
